A Different Girl in a Different World
by Ariadne Arceneau
Summary: Ahrlia is a different girl. She thinks differently, sees the world differently, has different eyes, a different name and different... friends. Living a difficult, harsher life than other girls, she struggles to even be accepted by others. Stripped of love and friendship, she turns to bloodshed for comfort. But when she meets a stoic, cold assassin, will she finally have a friend?
1. Chapter 1, Different

"Why are you so useless?" "Why won't you just go away?" "You're such an idiot." "No one wants you around, Ahrlia!" Her... _friends _insulted her, unfeeling. She only wanted to watch the boys train. She thought that it would be fun. She was mistaken. Eyes tearing up, she dashed away from the training ring, away from the castle, away from her home, from the gardens, her wavy hair swishing behind her. Ebony dress flowing behind her legs, her feet pattering on the ground, warm, wet tears dripped from her multicoloured eyes. "I'm surprised she didn't draw her _claws_ out and try to rip you apart!" she heard her supposed best friend joke about her to the people she once loved. "My god, did you see her eyes? She must be the spawn of the devil!" Nadah, a girl, the one she was fiercely loyal to, the person that she thought she could always turn to, criticized her. Eyes widening, she attempted to hold back a sob but failed. She quickly made a sharp turn, off the road and into a dark alleyway.

Crumpling to the dirty floor, ignoring a few insects crawling on the walls, she placed her smooth, fair hands over her eyes and let out a quiet, heart-breaking sob. She was different, she knew. Her eyes, they were in different colours. The left eye was obsidian black, the right crimson red. She was feared for the colours that she once thought was beautiful. Striking. Lovely. Now, she saw it as pain. Suffering. A nightmare. She was called a monster. A creature.

"No... Why? Why was I born? Why must I be alive?" her voice cracked as she shakily questioned her existence. "I'm a disgrace. A failure. Useless. I don't belong here. " she told herself. Thinking further and further, she got more and more depressed. After an hour of dejected muttering, she mentally slapped herself and steeled herself. "No. I will go back to the gardens. I will apologize. I will leave my home, I will not cause anymore trouble. I will not listen to _them_ anymore. I am not a mere _toy _ that they can simply_ play_ with." Picking herself off the ground, she stood up, her resolve hardening, she stiffly walked towards the place she once called _sweet._

**A/N;** I am not the best writer. I understand if you want to criticize me. Please do so, I will need all the help I can get. I know, my writing style is tacky and bland. My first language is not English, please forgive me. My vocabulary and spelling is not that good, and my story is off to a bad start. Tell me what you feel about this story in the reviews, I will try my best to change this story the best I can to your preferences. And yes. I haven't included the main character in this story yet. Forgive me.


	2. Chapter 2, Hold Your Head Up, Fox

Ahrlia almost regretted going back to the castle. The first sentence she heard when she walked into the courtyard of her "home" was, "Why are you back, demon? Go on, walk out of the door!" Ahrlia simply ignored the person who said it, Nadah. Ahrlia held her head up high, looking proud and confident. She secretly tried not to let Nadah have the laugh of knowing that her words had hurt her feelings. Heading towards the stairs, towards the room at the top of the castle, she walked past her once friends, unwillingly hearing their loud whispers and comments about her. "Ugh, she's back?" "I tell you, she's a witch! Just _look_ at those eyes!" "I don't think you should, Rashidah. She'll suck your soul out!"

Upon entering her bedroom, she slammed the door behind her. Pressing her back to the back of the door, she slid down to the ground and tears came freely flowing out of her eyes. Outwardly sobbing, she pressed her hands to her eyes.

She remembered the times her friends stood up for her. When she needed help, they helped her. When she was bullied for her _eyes_, they saved her. When she was kicked and spitted on, they cleaned up and comforted her. Now, they were the ones turning on her. It_ hurt_. She wanted to do what others do, cut her wrists, kill herself, but when she was about to do such things, she stopped herself and told herself that it was a cowardly way to die. Remembering what her mother told her before she had slept and left her forever, she had told her, "My dear child, remember this. No matter what others tell you, you will always be beautiful to me. You're different, my child, but not in a bad way. Never try to pretend to be someone else, Ahrlia. Even if others do not like you. Remember, if you're pretending to be someone you aren't to be tolerable to others, you're not doing yourself justice. What will it be in it for you when you are not yourself? Friendship? Love? No, instead, the fake you will have these things, but the true you will not. Sooner or later, you will not be able to keep up the image and your world will crumble. I know, my child. This is a harsh truth, but you must learn. When you are treated as dirt on their shoes, remember, you tried your best to fit in. Hold your head up high, little white fox. You are my everything." She remembered the cutesy little nickname her mother granted her, after she picked up a white fox which surprisingly, did not attempt to run from her. Instead, it came for her, nuzzling her hand when she petted its head, giggling for the last time in a long while. Before her mother left her and she had to seek shelter from the nearby castle, where her mother worked in, as a garden girl. Her mother had passed away from a plague which was infecting Acre. She had caught it when an ill beggar dashed towards her for coin. Being the kind woman she was, she handed a few coins to him, her hand accidentally touching his and the illness was transferred to her. Surprisingly, even at the close distance Ahrlia had been near her mother, Ahrlia did not catch the illness.

"Of course," she muttered. "How can I forget such a thing? I did try my best to fit in. If they will not accept me for my looks and my different name, I will show them what means to cross me. I will not be kicked around. I will show them _no mercy_." She said this with coldness and hatred, her voice echoing her semi empty, dark room. In the back of her mind, she thought that maybe, perhaps, her mother meant that she she ignore others' hurtful words and carry on with her life, and not this. To take revenge and instil fear in others.

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**A/N:** Well, this chapter may be confusing to you. I'm sorry. I took a break in between writing this story and I may have forgotten to add in some important sentences to prevent confusion. Next chapter, I'll try to include Altaïr. Loveyouall

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_**Reviews:**_

** :** In the olden days, people were discriminated for superficial reasons, e.g. Different eyes, fairer skin, etc. I might be wring, but I think they were called "witch"? I'm not sure how to explain this, but whatever they couldn't do when the "different" people can, it was called "witchery"...

**The Forgotten Reader****: **Why thank you. The support is quite helpful. I'm really glad that you like my story, even if I'm not doing fairly well.


	3. Chapter 3, The White Lone Fox

Written on 11 August '14, Edited on 29 November '14

_Disclaimer: You're reading fanfiction right now. What else did you think you were reading?_

**A/N: Hey guys. I've just recently checked on this story and was pleasantly surprised by the follows and the one review. I haven't been uploading anything at all because of certain family issues and i may or may not have a pesky infected leg wound. Sorry for taking so long. Since I have not placed any effort in recording down my past idea for this story, I might take a different route for this story then I had actually intended to and cause minor or even possibly major differences to the story line.**

**You probably skipped all those words on top, yeah?**

Ahrlia was currently looking down at the courtyard, splitting her attention between watching the men fight and munching on her fresh, crunchy rosy red apple. 6 years had passed since she had cut off her connections with the girls her age, choosing to ignore them when they called names and threw rocks at her. They had tried their best to break her spirit, attempting but failing horribly at finding sick entertainment out of her, expecting her to cry, beg and plead them to stop, to ask them why they where treating her as such, to try to convince them to become her friends once again. They insulted Ahrlia for her looks as they had seen it as a chance, an opening to break someone, just for curiosity. Ahrlia was quiet and hardly a word was ever said to anyone, not even her "friends", making her the perfect target.

Ahrlia did not want to grow up as a garden girl. She didn't want to be one of them, to satisfy the needs of men. No, she wanted and _strived_ to be bigger. Instead, she had kneeled down to the Grand Master, begging him to make her one of his assassins. Initially, he refused, which was to be expected, leaving Ahrlia not too surprised. "You're a girl of 12 years, Ahrlia. We only accept men. You're too weak, much less even old enough, you'll just get in the way," he had told her directly to her face without a care for her feelings. However, Ahrlia was not one to be pushed away so easily. She had often sneaked away from her lessons of how to seduce and pleasure men, instead, to watch the assassin novices train instead. Taking in their methods of how they held themselves - with confidence, of course – with her eyes and painstakingly memorizing every little flaw of the novices to prevent herself from making the same embarrassing mistakes, she 'trained' herself by this way for 5 months.

Soon after, she quickly realized that fighting was never intended to be learned through only watching, unlike cooking, seducing or making most handicrafts. She had attempted to square off with one of the novices – which was a bad idea, by the way - and had failed miserably. The novice assassin had left with bruises and sores, yes, but so did she. She had asked him to show no mercy and he gladly obliged. It was a close match, but she had tried to use a skill that would have had either tipped the scales, for her or for the enemy. Unfortunately, she did not have the physical strength to pull the trick off. Gritting her teeth, she walked away, limping, but this did not mean that she had given up her dream so easily.

Ahrlia was lucky to find a broken training dummy created out of wood and hay, probably thrown away due to the number of holes and chunks missing from the dummy. The instructors had probably decided that it was not worth the effort of fixing such a broken dummy up with the materials that could be used to build an entirely new dummy. Finding that the dummy was good enough for her, well, better than nothing, she had picked it up and placed it in a dark and dusty room that she had found in a castle, where she had claimed as her "training grounds". Fixing the dummy up the best that she could with the limited skills and materials she had on hand, she deemed it strong enough to handle quite a fair bit of blows before requiring yet another repair. Training herself rigorously day by day, month by month with her body coated in dirt and slick sweat with her wavy chestnut hair tied in a ponytail everyday, she had improved a lot compared to the time when she had pleaded the Grand Master to become an assassin.

Plucking up her courage once more, she had approached the Grand Master yet again. "We shall see, my child," he had replied. Ahrlia was quite confused, however, her curiosity poked at her to ask him why he insisted on calling her his 'child' when they were not related but she had rethought about asking him twice before backing off, not wanting to question the Grand Master. The Grand Master had pitched her against assassins from different ranks, claiming that they did not want to accept weak women into the Creed, thus forcing her to have a harder time than other new assassins. Ahrlia ignored the sexist comment, instead, focused on giving the tests her all. The Grand Master demanded her to do stunts that she had never tried to do before, but she swallowed down her fear and took a huge risk of death. She succeeded in free running and the leap of faith on her first tries.

She remembered clearly as the Grand Master nodded his head in acceptance and declared that she was worthy to be an assassin. Pride and happiness had filled her and the first and last smile in months graced her face.

Ahrlia had quickly rose through the ranks as she trained with all her strength, proving instructors wrong when they had laughed and underestimated her, causing a dumbstruck look and a dropped jaw when they watched her dance with her blades. Soon, she had to remove her ring finger to claim her hidden blade. She merely gave a dead stare to the crowd of assassins as her ring finger was lopped off, showing no emotions. She was efficient with daggers and throwing knifes, slicing through the grainy texture of the wood, leaving splinters on the floor and sending strands of vibrant yellow hay flying in every direction with no difficulty as she dashed at the training dummies and threw straight knifes in the middle of targets and she spun in circles. Soon, she would be well known and feared by her fellow assassins, her being a master assassin at 18 years of age. Newbies came to her seeking for help, thinking that they would improve with her teachings. They did, but they had also quickly realized that she was cold and uncaring of others. She was known of being able to wipe out entire armies of Templars without letting any escape. She did not show mercy or remorse. She simply did not care.

She had replaced her mother's quote - "Hold your head up high, ignore the world, continue what you do best and all will turn out fine." - with one of the quotes that she was known for - "Hold your head up high, watch the world burn. It's not you, it's just too late for mercy.".

Ahrlia stuck with her old cutesy nickname that her mother had given her, but this time, the nickname would be spoken with fear by strangers and not her mother's love-filled compassionate voice. She was known as the "White Fox", the one who roams the grounds in chase of the Eagle, it's only true friend.

**A/N: I apologize if this chapter was boring and bland, I was trying my best to fill in the gaps left by the first two chapters which I has utterly failed at writing. Again, English is not my first language so please try excuse me on my grammar. Please review - whether it is criticism, a flame or a friendly supporting one! **

**-Ariadine, aka "Annalise" **


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